
Qass. 
Book_ 



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STEAM 



Boiler Explosions, 



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BY 



ZEEAH COLBUEN. 




DP THE ^ 

OF PEi flA. 

NEW YOEK 
D. VAN NOSTRA"ND, PUBLISHER, 

23 Murray and 27 Warrek Street 

1873. 



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BOILER EXPLOSIONS.* 



A well-made steam boiler cannot be 
burst or torn open except by a great force. 
The internal pressure required to rend 
open a cylindrical boiler may be approxi- 
mately calculated for any size of boiler and 
thickness of plates. With a boiler 3 ft. in 
diameter, and 10 ft. long, the plates, if f 
in. thick and riveted in the ordinary man- 
ner, oppose at least 65J sq. in. of resisting 
section to any pressure tending to burst the 
boiler longitudinally open, or in the direc- 
tion of its least resistance. A section of 
65 1 sq. in. of iron, of average quality, 
would not yield under a tensile strain of 
much less than 1,462 tons (the resistance 
of the iron being taken as 50,000 lbs. per 



* This essay, by the late Mr. Colbura, was written some- 
thing more than ten years ago, but the knowledge afforded by 
our later experiences would enable us to add but little, if any- 
thing. That the essay is still widely demanded, and that it 
has long been out of sprint, are the excuses for affording it 
a place in our pages at the present time. 



sq. in.), and this amount of strain could 
not be exerted by the steam within a boiler 
of the assumed dimensions, except at a 
pressure of at least 758 lbs. per sq. in. 
Such a boiler, therefore, if worked at a 
pressure of less than 125 lbs. per sq. in., 
would appear to be beyond all danger of 
explosion. 

This very large apparent margin of 
strength has been taken by many as suffi- 
cient to justify the hypothesis of some vio- 
lent internal action, at the instant preced- 
ing the actual rupture of a steam boiler ; 
the rupture being regarded as the conse- 
quence of such action, and not of a mere 
pressure, which, until the ruptured parts 
are in motion, can only act statically. In 
hypotheses of this kind electrical action, 
the detonation of explosive gases assumed 
to be collected within the boiler, and the 
sudden production of steam from water 
thrown on hot plates, have been variously 
assigned as the causes of internal concus- 
sion, Such hypotheses have derived a cer- 
tain amount of probability from the fact 
that there are perhaps as frequent instances 



of the quiet rupture of steam boilers a3 
there are of their violent explosion. A 
simple rupture, attended only by the loss 
of the steam and water in the boiler, can 
of course occur only (under the ordinary 
working pressure) in consequence of the 
failure of a particular plate or seam of riv- 
ets ; either from original defects in the ma- 
terial, imperfect construction, or from some 
injury which the boiler has sustained ei- 
ther at or before the moment of rupture. 
Such ruptures, being but rarely attended 
by any serious consequences, are seldom 
publicly reported. Their frequent occur- 
rence, however, might appear to exhaust 
the explanation by overpressure, so perse- 
veringly urged by Mr. Fairbairn and oth- 
ers in all instances of the violent explosion 
of steam boilers. 

Without, however, at present consider- 
ing ourselves bound either to accept or to 
reject the explanation of steam boiler ex- 
plosions by steadily accumulated pressure, 
we may consider the probability or other- 
wise of the various explanations which as- 
sume the sudden production of great quan- 



tities of steam from water thrown upon red- 
hot plates ; electrical action ; the decompo- 
sition of steam and detonation of hydrogen 
in contact with air, etc., etc. 



OVERHEATING. 



Although it is possible that boilers may 
be exploded, in consequence of the forma- 
tion of a great quantity of steam from water 
thrown upon red-hot plates, overheating 
cannot be assumed as being the general 
cause of explosions, which very frequently 
occur where there is abundant evidence, 
both before and after the disaster, that no 
overheating has taken place. Explosions 
have happened in many cases when, but a 
moment before, the water-gauges indicated 
an ample supply of water ; and, in such 
cases, as well as in others, where there was 
positive evidence as to the amount of water 
in the boiler, the furnace- plates have been 
found in a perfectly sound state, or at least 
without any appearance of having been 
burnt. Burnt iron can be recognized 
without difficulty, and the fact that the 
plates of an exploded boiler show no signs 



of having been burnt may be taken 
generally as proof that they have never 
been overheated after having been made up 
in the boiler of which they formed a part. 
Supposing, however, extensive and severe 
overheating to have taken place, and water 
to be suddenly thrown upon the heated 
plates, it is doubtful if the quantity of 
steam disengaged would be sufficient to 
increase greatly the pressure already 
within the boiler. Whoever has observed 
a large mass of wrought iron, when plung- 
ed at a high heat into twice or three times 
its weight of cold water, must have remark- 
ed how small a quantity of steam was 
disengaged. There is reason to believe 
that just as much and no more steam would 
be produced if the same weight of iron, 
heated to the same degree, were disposed 
in the form of a boiler, and the same 
quantity of cold water were suddenly thrown 
into it. If, however, the boiler already 
contained a considerable quantity of water, 
heated to from 212 deg. to 400 deg , the 
injection of additional water, upon any 
overheated surface of the furnace might be 



8 



followed, as indeed, in such cases, it often 
is, by an explosion. The effects produced 
upon the sudden liberation of a great 
quantity of heat, stored up? under consider- 
able pressure, in the water contained in a 
steam boiler, will be considered in another 
part of the present paper. But there is, I 
think, sufficient reason to believe that an 
empty boiler, however much it may be over- 
heated, may be filled, or partly filled, with 
water with no danger whatever of explosion. 
Hed-hot boilers, I am told, have been occasion- 
ally filled in this way without any disturb- 
ance or consequences of any kind indicating 
a tendency to explosion. I have never tried 
such an experiment myself, nor can I, per- 
haps, furnish such authority as would, by 
itself, be sufficient to establish such a 
fact ; * but a brief consideration of some of 



* A letter appeared in "The Engineer " of April 3d, 1857, 
signed u James Johnstone. " and containing the following 
statement:— "In the course of nay investigations I have ob- 
tained information that will be of use to your correspondent, 
'J. H., jun.,' who, I perceive by your last number, is about 
to fill a red-hot boiler with water by way of experiment v That 
has been done, and the result surprised the witnesses. The 
boiler was 25 ft. long, 6 ft. diameter, and the safety-valve 



the phenomena of heat has convinced me 
that it is a fact. The actual quantity of heat 
which the thin metallic sides of a steam boiler 
are capable of containing, is not sufficient 
to change a very large quantity of water 
into steam. According to the best authori- 
ties, the amount or total quantity of heat 
which would raise the temperature of one 
hundredweight (112 lbs.) of iron, through 
one degree, would inrpart the same additional 
temperature to 12| lbs: only of water. The 
quantity of heat which would raise the 
temperature of one hunred weight of copper 
through one degree would raise that of 
lOf lbs. only of water to the same extent. 
Thus, if we suppose a locomotive boiler to 
have 500 lbs. of its copper plates heated to 
1,300 deg. (the melting point of copper be- 
ing 2,160 deg.), this heat would be sufficient 



loaded to 60 lbs. per sq. in. When empty and red-hot the 
feed was let on and the boiler filled up. No explosion oc- 
curred, but the sudden contraction of the overheated iron 
caused the water to pour out in streams at every seam and 
rivet as far up as the fire-mark extended." In an editorial 
article which appeared in the " Scientific American " some- 
time in 1859, a similar experiment attended by the same 
results, was also mentioned. \ 



10 



only to convert about 50 lbs. of water, 
already heated under the working pressure 
to 350 deg., into steam ; the water being 
thrown up, we may suppose, by violent 
ebullition, as when the communication be- 
tween the boiler and the steam-cylinder of 
the engine is suddenly opened. The total 
heat of steam is a little more than 1,200 
deg., although its sensible temperature, to 
which the copper plates would be cooled in 
evaporating the water, is 414 deg. only at 
275 lbs. pressure, which pressure would cor- 
respond very nearly with the density of 59 
lbs. weight of steam when compressed into a 
steam-chamber of a capacity of 80 cubic 
feet, as in the larger class of locomotive 
boilers. And it must be understood that 
the whole quantity of disposable heat, as 
assumed above, must be appropriated by 
only 50 lbs. of water (assuming its tempera- 
ture as 350 deg.), in order that it may be 
converted entirely into steam. If this 
quantity of heat be distributed throughout 
a greater quantity of water, less than 50 lbs. 
of steam will be produced, inasmuch as a 
portion of the heat which would be neces- 



11 



sary to produce it will have been absorbed 
in raising the temperature of the additional 
water, but without raising it into steam. It 
is plain enough that the quantity of heat 
which would be sufficient only to raise 50 
lbs. of water into steam, would not suffice 
for converting any greater quantity of water, 
of the same temperature, into steam, and 
hence, with the quantities now assumed, 50 
lbs. weight of steam could be produced only 
by the entire appropriation of the disposable 
heat, in the overheated plates, by 50 lbs. 
of water, and by the complete exclusion of 
this heat from any additional quantity of 
water admitted at the same time. If, there- 
fore, the heat of 500 lbs. of copper plates at 
1,300 deg. of temperature, were so far com- 
municated to 50 lbs. of water of 350 deg. as 
to raise it into steam of 275 lbs. pressure 
and 414 deg. temperature — the plates be- 
ing cooled to the same temperature — the 
strain, might, no doubt (added as it would 
be to the pressure of steam existing in the 
boiler before the admission of the water), 
burst it with all the violent effects of ex- 
plosion. If, however, the situation of the 



12 



overheated surfaces was such that a com- 
paratively large quantity of cold water had 
to be admitted in order to cover a given 
area of hot metal, so that, by the time the 
500 lbs. of copper were covered, 500 lbs. 
of cold water had been brought into con- 
tact with it, no steam could be formed, and 
the water would be raised by but about 
100 deg. of temperature. Any considera- 
ble quantity of water being present, its 
circulation would be so rapid that the heat 
applied to it at the bottom would be al- 
most instantly communicated throughout its 
whole mass. This deduction from the ac- 
cepted laws of heat is borne out, experi- 
mentally, in plunging any weight of highly- 
heated metal into an equal weight of cold 
water. After the metal has ben cooled to 
the temperature of the water, little or no 
evaporation of the latter will be found to 
have taken place. A pint claret-bottle, the 
glass of which is by no means strong, may, 
when rilled with cold water, be safely held 
in the hand whilst a red-hot poker, as 
large as can enter the neck of the bottle, is 
plunged into the water. Not only will 



13 



there be no explosion, bat after the poker 
has been cooled to the temperature of the 
water, the latter, when shaken up, will 
have hardly more than a blood-heat, and 
none of the water will be evaporated. If 
the hot iron be kept from actual contact 
with the glass, this simple experiment may- 
be repeated at pleasure without even crack- 
ing the bottle. 

Much has been said of the spheroidal 
state of water when thrown upon heated 
plates. It would appear that, if ebullition 
were delayed in such case until after a con- 
siderable quantity of water had been ad- 
mitted, the heat of the plate would be so 
far absorbed in an equal or greater weight 
of water, that no explosion of the latter 
into steam could occur. This suggestion is 
given for what it is worth ; but to my 
mind the spheroidal condition of water, 
under the circumstances mentioned, has 
long been an argument against, rather than 
in favor of, the probability of explosion. 

When, however, the plates of a steam- 
boiler are burnt, the steam which may be 
in contact with them becomes superheated. 



14 



Dr. Alban, in his work on the high-pressure 
engine, mentions that, in his practice, he 
often found tin-soldered joints in the steam- 
pipe melted by overheated steam. Jacob 
Perkins heated steam, out of contact with 
water, to extraordinary temperatures, and 
it was his theory that, steam being similar- 
ly superheated when the water in a boiler 
is low, the subsequent agitation of the 
water, from any cause, instantly produces 
a large additional quantity of steam, and 
sufficient to cause explosion. In regard to 
the degree to which steam may be super- 
heated, Mr. Longridge has mentioned a 
case in his experience, a few years since, as 
Chief Inspector to the Manchester Boiler 
Association. In a boiler on which the 
steam-gauge marked a pressure of only 10 
lbs. per square inch, the steam, held in con- 
tact with an overheated plate, became so 
highly superheated as to completely char the 
wooden lagging of the boiler, although the 
wood was entirely removed from any portion 
of the heating surfaces of the , furnaces or 
flues. In a paper on the subject, read at 
the Institution of Civil Engineers in 1856, 



15 



Perkins' theory of boiler explosions was 
reiterated at some length, and the writer 
{Mr. W. Kemble Hall) assumed that ordi- 
nary steam, superheated to say 435 deg., 
would instantly convert water, thrown 
among it, into steam of a pressure pf 360 lbs. 
per square inch. The fact was overlooked, 
no doubt, that 75 cubic ft. of steam, at a 
pressure of 140 lbs. per square inch, weigh 
but 26 lbs., and that the specific heat of 
steam, at ordinary temperatures, is less 
than one-third that of water. Thus all 
the heat contained in 26 lbs. of steam, in a 
locomotive boiler, supposing the steam 
superheated even to 350 deg. above the 
temperature due to its pressure, could not 
generate much more than 3 lbs. of additional 
steam, which weight of steam, in the boiler 
in question, would not raise the pressure, 
at 140 lbs., to more than 160 lbs. to the 
square inch. Without pretending to any 
exactness in these figures, it is apparent 
upon a little consideration, that the conver- 
sion of water into steam, by being thrown 
up in a divided state, into highly super- 
heated steam, can hardly ever be sufficient 



16 



of itself to account for any boiler explo- 
sion.* Dr. Alban lias stated that in some 
of his experiments with a steam-generator, 
he stopped the injection of water and kept 
the enclosed steam in contact with a metal- 
lic surface at a temperature of 800 deg., 
and yet no symptoms of an explosion ap- 
peared when the water was re-introduced. 
He adds that a long-continued injection 
was necessary before enough pressure 
could be obtained to set the engine at work 
again. 

It is, nevertheless, a favorite opinion with 
many engineers that the presence of highly 
superheated steam within a boiler is suffi- 
cient to account for the most violent explo- 
sion. As compared with other current ex- 
planations of boiler explosions, it is per- 
haps no disadvantage to the explanation 
by superheated steam that it is incapable 
of proof. Although any one may blow up 
a boiler, no one has been able to prove, 



* In the Repertory : of Patent Inventions, Supplement, 
January, 1832, page 424, Mr. Thomas Earle gave the results 
of a calculation similar to the above, and tending to disprove 
Perkins theory, at that time being urged. 



17 



either by experiment or by calculation, that 
superheated steam, decomposed steam, or 
even electricity, could produce such a re- 
sult. If, on the other hand, we proceed to 
investigate the properties of steam, under 
various conditions, with such aids as science 
has placed at our disposal, we may satisfy 
ourselves that the explanations in question 
are erroneous ; and it is quite capable of 
proof by experiment that they are so. It is 
evident enough that no heat can be genera- 
ted within the steam or water-chamber of a 
boiler. All the heat which may exist 
there must have been communicated from 
an external source-— that is to say, from 
the fuel burning in the furnace. Heat acts 
by its quantity, just the same as ponderable 
matter ; and, so far as its effects are con- 
cerned, heat is as measurable as a solid 
body. If we cannot conceive the material 
existence of heat, we may observe, by the 
simplest experiment — that of plunging a 
hot poker into a pail of water — that a given 
weight of metal, heated to a given incandes- 
cence, will always impart a definite, and 
the same elevation of temperature to a 



18 



given weight of the cooling or absorbing 
medium. The quantity of heat which will 
raise a pound of water through 1 deg. of 
temperature is as definite and invariable as 
the quantity of water which will fill a given 
space, or as the weight, at any height of 
the barometer, of the air we breathe. 

No one, perhaps, would deny these well- 
known truths in the abstract, and I must 
plead, as my excuse for repeating them, the 
general oversight of such facts in the ex- 
planation of boiler explosions by superheat- 
ed steam. Although the sum of the sen- 
sible and latent heat of ordinary steam is 
not constant at all pressures, it is nearly so. 
Practically, steam not superheated cannot 
lose any part of its heat without being 
more or less condensed. In other words, 
it cannot make an additional quantity of 
steam ; since, to do so, it would require to 
possess the power of producing and com- 
municating an amount of heat which it did 
not previously contain. Steam may be led 
from one vessel and made to boil water in 
another, but this is only a transference of 
steam, as all the steam formed in the sec- 



19 



ond vessel will disappear from the first, 
and as much more besides as was required 
to raise the water in the second to the 
boiling point. With ordinary steam, the 
injection of any quantity of water, cooler 
than itself, among it, is attended with a 
partial condensation of the steam, and the 
elevation of the temperature of the water, 
but never by the production of additional 
steam. The quantity of heat which will 
raise 1 lb. of water through 1 deg. being 
termed an "unit of heat," about 1,150 
units will be required to convert 1 lb. of 
water, at 60 deg., into steam. But if the 
heat for conversion come from superheated 
steam (and it must be superheated, in or- 
der to generate additional steam, since it 
can part with none of its ordinary or nor- 
mal heat without more or less condensation), 
we then find that, owing to the difference 
between the specific heat of steam and that 
of water, a pound of the former must be 
superheated by nearly 3,500 deg., in order 
to impart 1,150 units of heat to a pound of 
the latter; at the same time maintaining 
its own existence as steam. Considering 



20 



that an ordinary locomotive boiler seldom 
contains 25 lbs. of steam, disengaged from 
the water, and that even 1,000 deg. of 
superheating in addition to from 300 deg, 
to 350 deg., the ordinary temperature of 
the steam, would be excessive, the explana- 
tion by superheated steam appears suffi- 
ciently incomplete to warrant its rejection. 

The foregoing reasoning upon the pro- 
duction of steam from water thrown upon 
red-hot plates was first suggested to me by 
Mr. D. K. Clark ; although I understand 
Mr. Clark to hold the opinion that the 
steam thus produced cannot be sufficient to 
account for boiler explosions. Under cer- 
tain circumstances, I believe a boiler may 
be violently exploded by the steam thus 
formed, and I think the explanation by 
overheating possesses considerable proba- 
bility, although it cannot, of course, be 
adopted in those frequent cases where there 
is proof that no overheating has taken 
place. 

ELECTRICITY. 

The well-known fact that steam some- 
times exhibits electrical properties on being 



21 



discharged into the air, no doubt suggest- 
ed the electrical hypothesis of boiler ex- 
plosions. Those, however, who have adopt- 
ed this hypothesis are unable to furnish any 
evidence of the existence of free electricity 
within a steam boiler. All our knowledge of 
electricity goes to show that even if it were 
developed by ebullition, or in steam when 
confined under pressure, it could not collect 
within a metallic vessel, which, like a boiler, 
is in perfect electrical communication with 
the earth. The electrical phenomena some- 
times observed when steam is being dis- 
charged into the air are believed to be 
caused partly by the friction of the escap- 
ing steam upon the inner surfaces of the 
discharging channel ; whilst it is possible 
that electricity is also liberated in the 
condensation of steam in the open air. 

Professor Faraday has examined with 
great care the action of Armstrong's hydro- 
electric engine,* in which steam, generated 

*The hydro-electric engine in the " Conservatoire des Arts 
et Metiers," at Paris, is the only one of the kind that I have 
seen, and I have taken the results of Professor Faraday's ex- 
amination of the machine from Gavarret's "Traite d'Elec- 
tricite," Paris, 1857.— Z. C. 



22 



from distilled~water in a boiler insulated 
upon glass supports, produces electricity on 
being discharged through a peculiar appa- 
ratus into the air. The steam is led by a 
pipe from the boiler, and through three or 
more small passages surrounded with a 
cooling apparatus, by which the steam is 
partially condensed into drops of water. In 
this state it enters, by tortuous passages, a 
series of discharging nozzles, each of which 
has an internal bushing or lining of box- 
wood. On the final discharge of the steam 
from these nozzles into the air, electricity 
is disengaged, and is collected by suitable 
metallic points connected with an ordinary 
conductor. Although powerful discharges 
can be thus obtained, there is no evidence 
whatever of the presence of electricity within 
the boiler. Indeed it is only by certain 
very peculiar arrangements that electricity 
is obtained at all. Professor Faraday found 
that if, instead of distilled water, ordinary 
spring water, containing the usual propor- 
tion of atmospheric air, was employed ; or, 
if any saline, acid, or alkaline substance 
capable of acting as a conductor, was dis- 



23 



solved in the water in the boiler, there was 
no electricity to be had. Nor did the con- 
ductor become charged unless the process 
of partial condensation was maintained in 
the " refrigerating box;" and, what was 
more singular, nothing but box-wood 
nozzles appeared to have the power of 
finally exciting the electrical action at the 
instant of discharge. 

The results of Professor Faraday's re- 
searches, as to the mode in which electricity 
was produced in the experiments which he 
made with Armstrong's machine, comprise 
the following facts : — 

1. The production of electricity is not due 
to any change in the state of the liquid 
contained in the boiler. 

2. A current of dry steam produces no 
development ot electricity. The production 
of electricity is due to the friction in the 
box-wood nozzle of the drops of water, 
formed by the partial condensation of the 
steam in the refrigerating box. 

3. Increasing the pressure of the steam 
increased the development of electricity by 



24 



increasing the friction, of the issuing jets of 
steam and water. 

4. The same results were obtained from 
compressed air, discharged through the 
box- wood nozzles, as from steam discharged 
under the same circumstances. When the 
air was perfectly dry there was no develop- 
ment of electricity ; when the air was 
humid, and contained besides a very little 
pulverulent matter, the friction of discharge 
produced electricity in the same manner 
as when steam was employed in the experi- 
ments. 

It will be borne in mind that with all the 
special and peculiar conditions requisite for 
the production of electricity by this appara- 
tus, the boiler mu3t be perfectly insulated 
on glass supports. And although Mr. 
Armstrong probably constructed his ma- 
chine under the impression that the gene- 
ration of steam was essential to the results 
sought to be obtained, Piofessor Faraday 
found that the same results were disclosed 
when atmospheric air, condensed to the 
same pressure a3 the steam, was employed 
in its stead. 



25 



It has been ingeniously argued that 
steam boilers may become insulated by an 
internal coating of boiler-scale. It would 
be necessary, however, that this scale 
should completely cover every part of the 
internal surfaces of the boiler, and even 
those of the steam pipe, stopcock, etc. A 
single crack in any part of this complete 
dielectric lining would liberate any elec- 
tricity w r hich might be contained in the 
steam. Whilst there is no probability that 
any steam boiler was ever so completely 
lined with scale, there is another fact which 
appears to dispose of the electrical explana- 
tion, even if perfect insulation existed. 
This fact is, that water may be boiled in a 
perfect Leyden arrangement with no de- 
velopment of electricity. 

Without pursuing the electrical hypothe- 
sis any further, we may observe that no one 
has yet offered to explain how electricity, 
even if it existed in high tension, would 
explode a steam boiler. And, if it exist at 
ail in steam boilers, why doe3 it not exist 
in all boilers ? And if in all, why does it 
not manifest its presence in other ways 



26 



than in explosions ? If electricity act at all 
it must be by quantity, and if the quantity 
developed be sometimes sufficient to burst 
boilers, we have a right to look for visible, 
although milder, phenomena when the 
quantity is insufficient. Yet no phenomena 
of the kind, sufficient to excite alarm, or 
even to attract attention, are observed. 
The. fact is, no one has elaborated the 
electrical hypothesis into anything like a 
theory of boiler explosions. The presence 
of electricity has been suggested, and 
among those who prefer mystery, or, at 
least, very obscure explanations, to circum- 
stantial investigation, some have referred 
boiler explosions to electricity. 

DECOMPOSED STEAM. 

The unsatisfactory results generally ob- 
tained by those who have sought to decom- 
pose water by heat-, on a large scale, with 
the view of applying its elementary gases 
separately, does not appear to have pre- 
vented the occasional adoption of the 
hypothesis that, in certain cases, all the 
steam contained within a boiler is decom- 



27 



posed, and its hydrogen (by some means 
not easily explained) exploded with great 
violence. That steam, passed over pure 
metallic iron heated to redness, is decom- 
posed is perfectly true, although the iron 
must retain all the oxygen separated in the 
operation. With oxidised iron, however, 
the process of decomposition cannot be con- 
tinued. This is, I believe, a chemical fact 
of which there can be no dispute. To 
decompose 1 lb. of water (or steam, which 
is chemically the same substance), 14.2 oz. 
of oxygen must be fixed by the iron, and 
only 1.8 oz. of hydrogen will be set free. 
This large proportion of oxygen, absorbed 
by only a few square feet of overheated 
surfaces, would soon form an oxide of iron 
of sufficient thickness to arrest all further 
decomposition, and all the hydrogen up to 
that time disengaged would not amount, 
perhaps, to 1 lb. in weight. By itself, or 
mixed with steam, hydrogen cannot be ex- 
ploded, nor even ignited. It will extinguish 
flame as effectually as would water. 

Upon this subject, I may refer to a re- 
port made by Professor Faraday in May, 



28 



1859, to the Board of Trade, upon the 
liability to accident consequent upon the 
introduction of an apparatus for superheat- 
ing steam on board the Woolwich steam- 
boats. In this apparatus the steam was 
carried, in iron pipes, immediately through 
the furnace and in contact with the in- 
candescent fuel. Professor Faraday, after 
having examined the apparatus at work, 
says : — 

" I am of opinion that all is safe, i. e,, 
that as respects the decomposition of the 
steam by the heated iron of the tube, and 
the separation of hydrogen, no new danger 
is incurred. Under extreme circumstances 
the hydrogen which could be evolved would 
be very small in quantity — would not exert 
greater expansive force than the steam — 
would not with steam form an explosive 
mixture — would not be able to burn with 
explosion, and probably not at all if it, with 
the steam, escaped through an aperture 
into the air, or even into the fire-place. 

" Supposing the tubes were frequently 
heated over much, a slow oxidation of the 
iron might continue to go on within ; this 



29 



would be accompanied by a more rapid 
oxidation of the exterior iron surface, and 
the two causes would combine to the 
gradual injury of the tube. But that would 
be an effect coming under the cognizance 
of the engineer, and would require repair 
in the ordinary way. I do not consider 
even this action likely to occur in any serious 
degree. I examined a tube which had been 
used many months which did not show the 
effect ; and no harm or danger to the pub- 
lic could happen from such a cause." 

Professor Taylor, of Guy's Hospital, re- 
ported in part, as follows, upon the same 
apparatus : — 

"It is true that steam passed over 
pure metallic iron heated to redness 
(1,000 deg.), is so decomposed that 
the oxygen is fixed by the iron while 
hydrogen gas is liberated. This chemical 
action, however, is of a very limited kind. 
The surface of the iron is rapidly covered 
with a fixed and impermeable layer of the 
magnetic oxide of iron, and thenceforth the 
chemical action is completely arrested. If 
the interior of an iron pipe has been already 



30 



oxidized, by passing through it, while in a 
heated state, a current of air, there will 
be no decomposition of steam during its 
passage through it. If the interior of 
an iron pipe were not thus previously oxi- 
dized, it would speedily become so by the 
oxygen derived from the air, which is always 
mixed with steam. Hence, chemically 
speaking, under no circumstances, in my 
opinion, would any danger attend the pro- 
cess of superheating steam, as it is conduct- 
ed under this patent. 

" It is proper also to state, that hydrogen 
is not explosive, but simply combustible, 
and assuming that it was liberated as a 
result of the decomposition of superheated 
steam, its property of combustibility would 
not be manifested in the midst of the enor- 
mous quantity of aqueous vapor liberated 
with it and condensed around it. There 
could be no explosion, inasmuch as hydro- 
gen, unless previously mixed with oxygen, 
does not explode ; and oxygen is not liber- 
ated ; but actually fixed by the iron in this 
process. It is a demonstrable fact that the 
vapor and gas evolved under the form of 



31 



superheated steam, tend to extinguish flame 
and to prevent combustion from any other 
cause." 

Professor Brande, in a report made by 
him to the patentees of the same apparatus, 
observes : — 

" In reference to the question which you 
have submitted to me, respecting the pos- 
sible or probable evolution of hydrogen gas 
and consequent risk of explosion in the 
processes and by means of the apparatus 
which you employ for the production of 
superheated steam, I am of opinion that 
there can be no danger from such effect ; 
that the temperature to which the iron pipes 
connected with your boiler are raised, and 
the extent of the iron surface over which 
the steam passes, are insufficient for its 
decomposition ; and that if the temperature 
of the pipes were even raised considerably 
beyond that which you employ, or would be 
able to attain, a superficial layer of oxide of 
iron would line the interior of the heated 
pipes, and so prevent any continuous de- 
composition of water. Effectually to decom- 
pose steam, by passing it over iron, it is 



32 



necessary that a very extended surface of 
the metal (as in the form of thin plates or 
iron turnings) should be used, and that the 
temperature should be continuously main- 
tained at a bright red heat, namely at a 
temperature considerably above 1,000 deg. of 
Fahrenheit. 

"I have read Dr. Taylor's report, and 
entirely agree with the inferences he has 
drawn as to the absence of danger from the 
evolution of hydrogen gas in practically 
carrying out your process for the production 
and application of superheated steam.' ' 

The practical conclusions upon this sub- 
ject are the following : — 1. Decomposition 
cannot possibly occur, to any considerable 
extent, under any circumstances arising in 
the working of ordinary steam-boilers; 2, 
If it did occur, the hydrogen thus liberated 
would have no access to oxygen, without 
which it could neither inflame nor explode ; 

3, Even if oxygen were present, the pre- 
sence of steam would prevent ignition ; and, 

4, If oxygen were present, and no steam 
existed in the boiler, the hydrogen would 
only inflame and burn silently as fast as it 



wa,s produced, the heat for ignition being 
supposed to come from a red-hot plate. 
Under these accumulated impossibilities of 
violent explosive action, the explanation of 
boiler explosions by the decomposition of 
steam is without any support whatever. 

OVERPEESSUEE. 

Any pressure, whether gradually or mo- 
mentarily generated in a boiler, is an over- 
pressure when it exceeds the safe working 
pressure ; and, strictly speaking, there must 
always be overpressure whenever a boiler 
is burst. When, however, an explosion 
is said to have occurred by overpressure, it 
is commonly understood that the pressure 
has been allowed to increase gradually up to 
the limit of the strength of the boiler, and if 
this has been calculated to coi respond to 
a pressure of 700 lbs., for instance per 
square inch, the actual pressure at the mo- 
ment of explosion is accordingly assumed at 
that moment. Boilers may, perhaps, be 
generally capable of withstanding nearly 
their full calculated bursting pressures ; in- 
deed, comparatively few boilers do fail in 
• 



34 



any way, for after all, the number of ex- 
plosions — numerous as they are — bears but ■ 
a very small proportion to the actual num- 
ber of boilers in use. But for the purposes 
of investigation, there are abundant instan- 
ces of the quiet rupture of steam boilers 
under ordinary working pressures, so that 
even a violent explosion does not absolutely 
prove that the pressure under which it oc- 
curred was anything like the calculated 
bursting pressure of the boiler. If the 
bursting pressure be 758 lbs. per square 
inch it might not be difficult to raise 
the steam to that point and burst the 
boiler. Yet it is very improbable that 
anything like a pressure of 758 lbs. per 
square inch ever accumulates in a boiler 
intended to work at 100 lbs. or 125 lbs. 
We will suppose a locomotive boiler with 
75 cubic ft. of water-room containing 4,650 
lbs. of water, and 75 cubic ft. of steam 
room containing 23 lbs. in weight of steam 
at a pressure of 120 lbs. per square inch. 
To increase the pressure even to 285 lbs. 
per square inch, 25J- lbs. additional weight 
of steam would have to be compressed into 

• 



35 



the steam-chamber, and the remaining 
4,624^- lbs. of water would have to be T 
raised to*- 350 deg., the temperature of 
steam of 120 lbs. to 417-| deg., the tempe- 
rature of steam of 285 lbs. pressure. The 
25 1 lbs. of additional steam, formed from, 
water of an average temperature of 380 
deg., would have absorbed about 21,000 
units of heat, whilst the elevation of the 
temperature of 4,624 lbs. of water, by 67-J- 
deg., would require 312,120 units of heat. 
The whole heat thus expended would equal 
that necessary for the evaporation of about 
285 lbs. of water under a moderate pres- 
sure, and this heat would require the com- 
bustion of at least 32 lbs. of good coke. 
Although the steam gauge of a locomotive 
will often rise 7 lbs. or 8 lbs. a minute 
in standing, and 10 lbs. or even 15 lbs. 
when a strong blast is turned up the chim- 
ney when running with a light load, the 
steam could not probably rise from 120 lbs. 
to 285 lbs. in much less than twenty 
minutes under any circumstances likely to 
occur in practice. Mr. Fairbairn has cal- 
culated that with a certain locomotive boiler 



36 



on which he experimented, 48 minutes 
would be required to raise the pressure 
from that of the atmosphere to 240 lbs. 
With the same boiler under the same cir- 
cumstances as in the first experiment, 28 
minutes would be required to raise the 
pressure from 60 lbs. to 300 lbs. per square 
inch. The rapidity with which the 
steam pressure would rise would altogether 
depend upon the relative extent and 
temperature of the heating surface to 
the quantity of water in contact with 
it. Mr. Martin Benson who has had 
much experience in the working of the 
steam fire-engines employed at Cincinnati, 
United States, informs me that, with the 
fires carefully laid with light combustible 
materials, steam has been raised in the 
boilers of these engines in 4 min. 38 sec, 
from cold water to a pressure of 65 lbs. per 
sq. in. In 2 min. the pressure has been 
raised from 10 lbs. to 90 lbs. per sq. in. In 
these boilers, however, the tubes are first 
heated, and small quantities of water are 
afterwards injected into them, the whole 



37 



quantity of water at any time in the boiler 
rarely exceeding one cubic foot. 

The simple increase of pressure in a 
boiler, either when at work or when stand- 
ing, must undoubtedly be comparatively 
gradual — a matter of some minutes, at least. 
Whatever might cause the steam gauge to 
mount, suddenly, from 100 lbs. to the limit 
to which it is marked, it is very certain that 
the necessarily gradual increase of the heat 
of the water within the boiler could not 
produce such a result. Yet those who 
have given any attention to the subject of 
boiler explosions are aware that they fre- 
quently occur when, without any overheat- 
ing of the plates, the pressure stood, but a 
moment before, at the ordinary working 
point. In the case of the locomotive boiler 
which exploded in the summer of 1858, at 
Messrs. Sharp, Stewart & Co.'s, at Man- 
chester, the pressure, as observed upon two 
spring balances and a pressure-gauge, stood 
at 117 lbs. to 118 lbs., a minute before the 
explosion, both valves blowing off freely at 
the time. The part of the boiler which 
exploded was the ring of plates next the 



38 

smoke-box, out of the influence of any part 
of the fire. The fact, therefore, of the 
violent explosion of a strongly made boiler 
at 117 lbs., is a proof that it is not neces- 
sary to assume and to account for the ex- 
istence of any pressure, about that point. 
* / On the 5th of May, 1851, a locomotive en- 
gine, only just finished, burst its boiler in 
the workshop of Messrs. Bogers, Ketchum 
& Grosvenor, at Paterson, New Jersey, 
United' States. I was upon the spot but a 
few moments afterwards, and found the 
effects of the explosion to be of the most 
frightful character : a consider able portion 
of the three- story workshop being blown 
. down, whilst four men were instantly killed, 
and a number of others were injured, one 
of whom died soon afterwards. Several of 
the men, who, although immediately about 
the engine at the time, escaped unhurt, 
unanimously declared that the safety-valves 
were blowing off before the explosion, and 
that the two spring balances indicated, but a 
moment before the crash, a pressure of but 
110 lbs. per sq. in. On the 12th of Febru- 
ary, 1856, the locomotive Wauregan ex- 



59 



ploded, after standing for upwards of two 
hours in the engine-house of the Hartford, 
Providence, and Fishkill Kailroad, at Provi- 
dence, United States. Only sufficient steam 
had been maintained in the boiler to enable 
the engine to be run out of the house ; but 
at the time of the explosion the engine had 
not been started, the engine-man, who was 
killed, being upon the floor, at the side of 
the engine, at the time. The boiler gave 
out in the ring of plates next behind the 
smoke-box. Destructive explosions often 
occur at pressures of 10 lbs. to 12 lbs. per 
sq. in. in low-pressure boilers ; and it is on 
many accounts improbable that anything 
like the calculated bursting pressures of 
boilers is ever reached, even where the 
most frightful explosions have occurred. 
Not only would the accumulation of steam 
of the calculated bursting pressure require 
considerable time, but the gauge, if there 
were one, would soon be fixed at the limit 
of its motion, and the safety-valves, if they 
were not wedged down, would blow off 
with unusual violence. In the case of 
locomotive engines, which have no 3elf-act- 



40 



ing governors, any considerable increase of 
pressure would, if the engine were under 
way, quicken its speed, and cause the driv- 
ing wheels to slip upon the rails to such an 
extent as to arrest the attention of the en- 
gine-man. The fact that he would have to 
nearly close the regulator, and keep it 
nearly closed, whilst drawing a load with 
which it was at other times necessary to 
run with the regulator wide open, would be 
a significant indication of the state of things 
in the boiler. 

If boilers burst only from overpressure, 
they would, of course, give out first — as, in- 
deed, they always must — in the weakest 
part ; say, along a seam of rivets, which is 
but about one half as strong as the solid 
plate. But, after one seam had opened, 
the relief of pressure would be so instan- 
taneous that, without subsequent percussive 
action, the rupture could hardly extend 
itself through solid plates of nearly twice, 
or even, perhaps, ten times the strength of 
the part which first gave way. The general 
strength of the solid plates of a boiler 
should be, and probably is, from ten to 



41 



twenty times greater than that of any part 
so weak as to rupture, as is often the case, 
under the ordinary working pressure. Mr. 
Whitworth has made an experiment upon 
one of his new cannon, made of homo- 
geneous iron, which shows how a great 
pressure may relieve itself by a very small 
opening. After loading one of his 3- 
pounders, he plugged the muzzle so as to 
render it impossible for the gun to dis- 
charge itself in the ordinary manner. On 
firing the charge the piece did not burst, 
but all the gases escaped through the 
4 ' touch-hole.' ' This severe test was re- 
peated several times. In the case of ex- 
cessive pressure, there would be many cir- 
cumstances to attract the attention of the, 
attendants, whereas explosions more com- 
monly occur with little or no warning 
whatever. 

This line of argument tends, undoubtedly, 
to assimilate the conditions of violent ex- 
plosion to those of quiet rupture; and 
although like causes should produce like ef- 
fects, it may perhaps be shown that, so far 
as pressure alone is concerned, either ex- 



42 



plosion or simple rupture may occur in- 
differently at one and the same actual pres- 
sure, existing up to the moment of failure > 
Instead, therefore, of calculating the 
strength of a boiler from its diameter and 
the thickness of the plates, and then assum- 
ing that it can only burst at a corresponding 
pressure, I shall adopt the fact of quiet or 
simple ruptures as proving (what might, 
indeed, be taken for granted) that boilers 
are not always as strong as they are calcu- 
lated to be ; and I shall then endeavor to 
show how violent explosion may result in 
one case from a pressure which only causes 
quiet rupture in another. 

Overheating, which has been considered 
with reference only to the generation 
of steam from water suddenly thrown 
on heated plates, and with reference 
to the decomposition of steam, may ma- 
terially reduce the strength of boiler plates. 
Up to temperatures of 400 deg. and 550 
deg. boiler plates have not been found to be 
weakened ; indeed, the experiments of the 
Committee of the Fianklin Institute indi- 
cated a gradual gain of strength, with in- 



43 



creasing temperatures, up to a certain 
point, and that the strength at 550 deg, 
was equal to that at 55 deg. Mr. Fairbairn 
finds the strength diminished one-fourth at 
a red heat ; and it is not difficult to under- 
stand that, at a very high heat, no reliance 
whatever could be placed upon iron or cop- 
per when subjected to strain. The furnace- 
flues of Cornish boilers, and the crown- 
plates of locomotive boilers, frequently alter 
their shape when overheated, and are often 
continued in regular work, until from some- 
cause — another burning, perhaps — they give 
out entirely. Although an examination of 
the furnace-plates, recovered from an ex- 
plosion, often shows that they have never- 
been subjected to an injurious temperature^ 
overheating must be taken as one among 
the various causes which may operate ta 
weaken a steam boiler. 

Again, as it is considered injurious to a 
boiler to prove its strength, before it is put 
under steam, by a great hydrostatic pres- 
sure, we have no better means of ascertain- 
ing its actual strength than by inferring: 
the bursting pressure from its dimensions^ 



44 



and from the thickness and general quality 
of the plates. Indeed, the actual strength 
of a boiler can be ascertained only by a pro- 
cess which involves its destruction. In 
other words, pressure of some kind must be 
accumulated within it until it bursts, in or- 
der to know what amount of pressure will 
suffice to burst it. A new locomotive boil- 
er, of peculiar construction, which exploded 
in October, 1856, at Messrs. Bolckow & 
Vaughan's ironworks, at Middlesborough- 
on-Tees, was believed to have been injured 
in a previous test, by steam pressure of 130 
lbs. per sq. in. Dr. Joule, of Manchester, 
has lately called attention to the liability to 
injury to which boilers are exposed under 
tests by steam or hydrostatic pressure. He 
proposes a test employed by himself with 
entire success for the last two years. He 
fills the boiler entirely full of water, and 
then makes a brisk fire upon the grate. 
"When the water has been warmed to from 
70 deg. to 90 deg., the safety-valve is load- 
ed to the pressure up to which the boiler is 
to be tested. The rise of pressure is then 
■carefully observed by a steam pressure 



45 



gauge ; and if the progress of the pointer 
be constant and uniform, without stoppage 
or retardation, up to the testing pressure, it 
is inferred that the boiler has withstood it 
without strain or incipient rupture. In this 
mode of testing, the expansion of the water,, 
by heat, is so rapid, that Dr. Joule has 
found the pressure to rise from zero to 62 
lbs. per sq. in. in five minutes. But this 
mode of testing the strength of a boiler can- 
not, any more than any other mode, show 
the strength beyond the testing pressure ; 
it cannot show the actual strength or burst- 
ing pressure of the boiler except that be de-„ 
stroyed in the test. And although the 
quality of the materials and workmanship 
in steam boilers may vary generally within 
narrow limits only, not only different boil- 
ers, but different parts also of the same 
boiler, are of very unequal strength. The 
weakest part of the weakest boiler may be 
almost immeasurably weaker than the 
strongest part of the strongest boiler. The 
material of which boilers are made varies 
greatly in strength. In Messrs. E. Napier 
& Sons' recent experiments (conducted by 



46 



Mr. David Kirkaidy) upon the strength of 
iron and steel, one sample of Farnley plate 
iron bore a strain of 62,544 lbs. per sq. in., 
whilst another sample of iron from the same 
makers broke under a strain of 40,541 lbs. 
per sq. in. Glasgow ship-plates bore, in 
one ease, 53,370 lbs. per sq. in. and in anoth- 
er only 32,440 lbs. Even Lowmoor iron va- 
ried in strength between the limits of 47,- 
426 lbs. and 57,881 lbs. per sq. in. Howev- 
er the strength of iron may be averaged for 
the general purposes of the engineer, we 
are never justified in assuming an average 
or standard strength for the particular parts 
of a steam boiler which, in the case of 
explosion, were the first to give out. The 
fact of explosion is in itself prima facie 
evidence that these parts were not of aver- 
age strength, and affords good ground for 
the presumption that they were of only the 
minimum strength; and the minimum 
strength of iron is not known, for however 
weak a given specimen might be, another 
one, much weaker, might doubtless be 
found. Comparatively, few experiments 
iiave ever been made upon the strength of 



47 



plates, and the averages given by Mr. 
Fairbairn and others have been taken from 
comparatively few trials. Messrs. Napier's 
experiments were considered very compre- 
hensive ; yet they included only 150 
sepecimens of iron plates, with which 
number the range of strength was 
from 32,450 lbs. to 62,544 lbs. per 
square inch. Mr. Fairbairn found the 
strength of a broken plate, taken from the 
boiler which exploded at Messrs. Sharp, 
Stewart & Co.'s, to be only 4.66 tons per 
square inch, or but one-fifth of the proper 
average. It is presumable, perhaps, that the 
strength of plate iron varies within as wide 
limits as that of cast iron, from which plate 
iron is made, and upon the quality of which 
its own must also depend. The Government 
cast iron experiments concluded last sum- 
mer, at Woolwich, comprised 850 speci- 
mens, ranging in strength from 9,417 lbs. 
to 34,279 lbs. per square inch, the average 
strength of all the specimens being 23,257 
lbs. It must be remembered, however, 
that the sample which .bore only 9,417 lbs. 
per square inch cannot be taken as the 



43 



weakest which would occur in practice, 
inasmuch as it was not selected at random 
from iron in the market, but was one of 
several samples which had been contributed 
by a long-established firm, with the expecta- 
tion, no doubt, of obtaining the preference 
of the authorities. If the poorest iron were 
purposely sought for, as it should be, in 
order to estimate the chances of failure, 
cast iron could, no doubt, be found which 
would not bear a strain of 3,000 lbs. per 
square inch; whilst, on the other hand, 
there are authenticated instances of tests in 
which cast iron did not yield until the 
strain had reached 45,000 lbs. per square 
inch. 

Apart, also, from the quality of the iron* 
its thickness varies greatly in the practice 
of various makers. In the United States, 
for example, the plates in the waist of a loco- 
motive boiler, 48 in. in diameter, and intend- 
ed to carry steam of 120 lbs. per square inch 
(sometimes increased to 160 lbs. or more), are 
i in. only, although T 5 g in. plates are oc- 
casionally used. In England, the thickness 
of plates .fox such a boiler is from f in. to 



49 



l in. ; L 7 ff in. being a common thickness. In 
France a 48-in. locomotive boiler, the pres- 
sure within which rarely exceeds 120 lbs., 
is generally 15 millimetres, or -fa in. thick. 
The strongest form of a boiler is a homo- 
geneous metal tube, drawn solid, and of 
from say 1^ in. to 2 in. diameter. Its 
bursting pressure is seldom less than 7,000 
lbs. per square inch; in some case3, as 
much as 15,000 lbs. 

In working iron into steam-boilers, it is 
commonly supposed that the loss of strength 
in punching is proportional only to the 
width punched out. If, in a row of rivet 
holes, in the edge of a plate 24 in. wide, 
there are 13 holes of f in. diameter, the 
length of iron removed in the line of strain 
is 13 X f — 9f sq. in., or but about two- 
fifths of the whole width of the plate. Mr. 
Fairbairn has found, however, that the 
strengh of a given section of plate iron, as 
left, after punching, between two rivet 
holes, i3 actually less than the strength 
of an equal section of the same plate before 
punching. In eight experiments, the high- 
est strength of the plate experimented upon 



50 



was 61,579 lbs., and the lowest 43,805 lbs., 
per sq. in., the average of the whole being 
52,486 lbs. per sq. in. But with the 
same plate, after punching, the strength 
per square inch of the metal left between 
the holes varied between only 45,743 lbs- 
and 36,606 lbs., the average of seven tests 
giving only 41,590 lbs. per sq. in. of the 
remaining solid iron, against 52,486 lbs;, 
the strength of the same section of the 
same iron before punching. With this in- 
jury, therefore, in punching the iron, by 
which even the remaining solid iron is 
weakened by more than one-fifth, the 
strength of an ordinary single riveted 
seam is, as was many years ago ascer- 
tained by Mr. Fairbairn, only 56 per cent., 
or a little more than one -half that of the 
same plate tested through solid iron away 
from the seam. Single riveting alone, 
therefore, destroys, upon the average, 44 
per cent, of the strength of the weakest 
plate worked into a steam boiler. In some 
cases, the injury by punching may be much 
greater than was apparent in Mr. Fair- 
bairn's experiments. I have seen, in one 



51 



of the most extensive engine works in 
France, punched plates of iron, T 6 ¥ ths in. 
thick, in which there were cracks from 
three consecutive rivet holes to the outer 
edge of the plate. As sometimes made up 
(and in dealing with boiler explosions it is 
our business to look for extreme cases), the 
plates are got together by the aid of 
" drifts," and the iron is under a greater or 
less initial strain before steam is ever 
raised in the boiler. 

Apart from the quality of the materials, 
and from the effects resulting from the or- 
dinary processes of securing them together, 
the general construction of a steam boiler 
greatly affects its strength. In Mr. Fair- 
bairn's experiments upon the stayed sides 
of locomotive fire-boxes, a plate-iron box, 
made to represent the side of a strongly 
stayed fire-box, bore, in one case, the enor- 
mous pressure of 1,625 lbs. per sq. in. be- 
fore yielding. The strength of the sides of 
a locomotive fire-box depends, however, 
almost entirely upon the stay-bolts alone, 
as without these the sides of the fire-box 
would be the weakest parts of the whole 



£9 



boiler. Yet I have frequently found these 
stays (where made of wrought iron) to be 
as brittle, after a few years' use, as coarse 
cast iron. I have broken them off from 
the sides of old fire-boxes, sometimes with 
a blow no harder than would be required 
to crack a peach-stone. The upper stay- 
bolts appear to suffer the most. Their de- 
terioration, after long use, has been attrib- 
uted to slight but repeated bendings, 
caused by the expansion of the fire-box 
every time the fire is lighted, and its subse- 
quent contraction when the boiler is again 
cooled. Upon this supposition, some loco- 
motive makers turn these bolts to a smaller 
diameter in the middle of their lengths than 
at their ends, with the view of permitting a 
lt spring" without short bending, under the 
alternating movements of the fire-box. 

Mr. Fairbairn's experiments upon the 
strength of iron tubes have, as is well 
known, disclosed most important facts 
bearing upon their relative resistance to 
internal and external pressure. Until the 
recent announcement of Mr. Fairbairn's 
discovery that the resistance of metal tubes 



53 



to collapse was, within certain limits, in- 
versely as their length, their strength, or, 
more properly speaking, their weakness, 
was generally unknown. One startling 
result, as ascertained from the experiments 
under notice, was, that, whilst the bursting 
pressure of a boiler 7 ft. in diameter, 30 ft. 
long, and composed of single-riveted f in. 
plates, of average Quality, was 303 lbs. per 
sq. in., the collapsing pressure of its 3- ft. in- 
ternal plain flue of the same thickness of 
metal, was but little more than 87 lbs. per 
sq. in., or hardly more than one-fourth that 
required to burst the shell. 

The steam domes of locomotive boilers 
are sometimes of more than one-half the di- 
ameter of the barrel, which is consequently 
much weakened. It has been observed 
that locomotive boilers frequently burst 
through the plates to which the dome is at- 
tached, or through the plates immediately 
adjoining. Locomotive boilers, also, are 
occasionally, though not often, made of an 
oval section, their vertical diameter being 
3 in. or 4 in. larger than the horizontal di- 
ameter. A large number of the locomotives 



54 



constructed by the late M. Camille Polon- 
ceau, at the Ivry workshops of the Paris 
and Orleans Railway, have oval boilers of 
this kind. Although such boilers are un- 
questionably weaker than when made of a 
truly cylindrical form, there are very few 
explosions upon the Orleans, or indeed upon 
any of the French lines. An engine explod- 
ed some two years ago at the Corbeil Sta- 
tion of the Orleans Railway. 

The employment of angle-iron in the 
construction of many of the older locomo- 
tive boilers involved some danger, and it is 
doubtful if the real resistance of angle-iron 
to longitudinal cracking is known at all. In 
Messrs. Napier's experiments, last summer, 
four bars of Consett ship angle-iron bore 
from 43,037 lbs. to 54,962 lbs. per -*q. in. 
when broken by a strain in the direction of 
their length. The process of manufactur- 
ing angle-iron tries it most severely, how- 
ever (unless the iron be originally of the 
very best quality), by inducing incipient 
cracking along its length, giving it a reedy 
structure, and thus inviting the complete 
separation of one leaf from the other at the 



55 



bend. Not a pound of angle-iron has been 
employed for several years in the construc- 
tion of American locomotive boilers, and as 
far as I am aware the French locomotive 
makers have abandoned its use. All the 
angular junctions in the outer shells of 
American locomotive boilers are rounded 
with an easy curve of seldom less than 4 
in. radius. The square corners made in the 
inside fire-box plates, which are almost al- 
ways of iron, require the very best quality 
of metal of a thickness of not more than T 5 ^- 
in., whilst the usual thickness is only ^ in. 
I have frequently seen what was considered 
to be a good quality of f in. plate cracked 
completely in two under the attempt to bend 
it to a square corner. 

The defects originally existing in a plate 
of iron are occasionally discovered after its 
failure has produced a violent explosion. 
The freight engine Vulcan, employed upon 
the Buffalo and Erie Railroad, U. S., burst 
its boiler with terrific violence in August, 
1856. Although the engine was one of 
three which had been built, as was believ- 
ed with unusual care, one of the broken 



56 



plates, afterwards recovered, exhibited a 
flaw 24 in. long. The plate which first gave 
way formed a part of the outer fire-box and 
extended to the dome, the 24 in. opening 
for which was an additional abstraction 
from the strength of the structure. The 
upper part of the fire-box was blown com- 
pletely off to one side, and the engine was 
thrown, bodily, 25 ft. to the other side, and 
into a ditch. 

The case of the engine Vulcan illustrates 
that of many others where explosions have 
occurred in consequence of a congenital de- 
fect, after the boiler had been for a consid- 
erable time at work. It would be natural 
to ask why, if a boiler be originally defec- 
tive, it does not explode the first time it is 
brought under steam ? How can the final 
explosion be delayed one, two, or even ten 
years, when, all along, a hidden flaw, a 
broken rivet, or a rotten plate existed in the 
boiler; and whilst explosion, therefore, 
must have been constantly impending 
under an almost perfect equilibrium be- 
tween strain and resistance? Does the 
strength of the boiler, after it has been 



57 



completed, deteriorate rapidly by use? 
Mr. William Shaw, Jr., of the Tow-lane 
Ironworks, Durham, wrote to " The Engi- 
neer" newspaper, under date of 15th De- 
cember, 1856, stating that, whilst he had 
20 high-pressure boilers under his inspec- 
tion, he had found fibrous iron, after a few 
years' use, to become crystallized, and as 
brittle as blister steel. On the other hand, 
Mr. Samuel J. Hayes, formerly Master of 
Machinery of the Baltimore and Ohio 
Railroad, U. S., and now holding a similar 
appointment upon the Illinois Central 
Railroad, at Chicago, 111., U. S., has 
informed me that he tested some of the 
plates of a boiler which exploded at Balti- 
more, in 1852, after 15 years' service, and 
that the iron bore an average tensile strain 
of 60,000 lbs. per sq. in. before yielding. It 
is doubtful if the iron in a steam boiler al- 
ters its condition except by over-heating ; 
although certain parts of the boiler may 
sustain injury from alternate expansion and 
contraction. Mr. Frederick Braithwaite 
read a paper, some time ago, before the 
Institution of Civil Engineers, upon the 



58 



' u Fatigue of Metals," in which paper iron 
was assumed to lose its strength under long 
continued strain. I cannot enter here upon 
the conclusions of the paper in question, 
but I may refer to an experiment, made, I 
believe, by Mr. Fairbairn, wherein a cast- 
iron column was loaded with .97 of its es- 
timated breaking weight, which weight 
was supported for six months, when the 
column broke. It is evident enough that a 
steam boiler, especially a locomotive boiler, 
is exposed to constant influences tending to 
weaken it ; and, apart from all reasoning 
under this head, the fact of the frequent 
quiet rupture of steam boilers, sometimes 
after several years' steady work, is a suffi- 
cient proof that local defects, whether ori- 
ginal or produced, may exist for a long 
time before the actual failure of the defec- 
tive parts. 

With regard generally to failures result- 
ing from an inferior quality of materials or 
workmanship, or from improper construc- 
tion or management, it may be said that 
whereas but one explosion occurred in the 
year 1859, among the 1,618 boilers under 



59 



the care of the Manchester Boiler Associ- 
ation, no less than 14 boilers were found to- 
be in a " dangerous " condition, and 100 in 
an " unsatisfactory " condition from the 
fracture of plates ; at least one boiler out of 
every fifteen under inspection having ex- 
hibited an injury of that kind in a single 
year. But for the admirable system of 
boiler-inspection pursued in Manchester 
(and more recently adopted at Hudders- 
field), the larger number of these injuries, 
would have remained undiscovered, and 
instead of one explosion there might have 
been twenty. 

Corrosion sometimes goes on entirely un- 
suspected. In a boiler which recently ex- 
ploded at Tipton, considerable breadths of 
the iron were found to have been reduced 
in thickness to -^th in. In the case of the 
explosion of a boiler at the Clyde grain 
mills, at Glasgow, in April, 1856, extensive 
breadths of the iron were said to have been 
reduced to the thickness of a sixpence ; and 
in the disastrous explosion which occurred 
in August of the same year, at Messrs. 
Warburton & Holker's, at Bury, the 



60' 



evidence showed that the bottom plates had 
been reduced for a greater or less width to 
only y^j- in. in thickness. In the year 1859 
there were reported 44 cases of " dangerous/ ' 
and 153 cases of " unsatisfactory " corrosion, 
among the 1,618 boilers under the inspec- 
tion of the Manchester Boiler Association. 
Thus there was nearly one case of corrosion 
in every eight boilers, in a single year. 

All these facts, it will be observed, sup- 
port the probability of explosion at nearly 
the ordinary working pressures. And, in 
the majority of cases, I believe it may be 
correctly assumed, in the absence of positive 
evidence to the contrary, that an exploded 
boiler, although to all appearance perfect 
up to the moment of rupture, contained 
some hidden defect. The fact of explosion, 
except under very peculiar circumstances, 
appears to be a better evidence of a defect 
in the boiler than of the previous existence 
of anything like a calculated bursting pres- 
sure of steam ; such a3 500 lbs. or 600 lbs. 
in a boiler made to work at 100 lbs. per 
sq. in. 

If, however, boilers of the full calculated 



61 



strength have ever been burst by gradually 
accumulated pressure, it would be the 
easiest thing possible to prevent the recur- 
rence of si3Lch disasters. If one or two 
safety-valves are sufficient, under ordinary 
circumstances, to liberate the steam as fast 
as it may be generated in the boiler, three, 
four, or, certainly, half-a-dozen equally large 
safety-valves, all blowing off at just above 
the ordinary working pressure, and all act- 
ing independently of each other, would 
effectually prevent all chance of overpres- 
sure . If the explanation by overpressure, 
so persistently urged by Mr. Fairbaim, be 
the true explanation, boiler explosions may 
be entirely prevented, even where the at- 
tendants are guilty of the grossest careless- 
ness. For wifch a sufficient area of effective 
safety-valve opening, it would be absolutely 
impossible, under the hardest firing, to raise 
the pressure 20 lbs. above the point at 
which the valves had been set to blow off. 
Safety-valves are simple, and comparatively 
inexpensive appliances, and they should be 
so fitted as to leave no doubt of their effi- 
ciency. Hawthorn's annular safety-valve, 



62 



when its area is properly proportioned to 
the evaporative power of the boiler, ren- 
ders any accumulation of pressure above the 
safe working limit quite impossible. Upon 
the locomotives of some of the Austrian 
railways, Baillie's 12-in. safety-valves, held 
down by volute springs pressing directly 
upon the valve, are in use. In a trial made 
in Vienna, to ascertain the discharging 
power of this kind of valve, the fire in a 
locomotive fire-box was urged by a jet of 
steam in the chimney, the engine being at 
rest, and 80 cubic ft., or 2 \ tons, of water 
were evaporated in one hour and discharged, 
in the form of steam, from the safety-valve. 
Although originally loaded to 64 lbs., the 
valve did not rise, during the experiment, 
above a point corresponding to a pressure 
of 76 lbs. per sq. in. The relief of pressure 
depends entirely upon the extent of safety- 
valve opening, supposing the valves to be 
in working order. Since the recent ex- 
plosion of a locomotive boiler on the Lewes 
branch of the Brighton Railway, Mr. Cra- 
ven, the locomotive superintendent, has ex- 
pressed his intention of applying three 



63 



safety-valves, of the usual size, to each of 
his engines. Whilst it would be quite 
possible, with a boiler unprovided with 
safety-valves, or of which the valves were 
inoperative, to produce an explosion by 
overpressure, it would be equally impossible 
to do so when these outlets from the boiler 
were equal in discharging capacity to its 
evaporative power. The fact of explosion 
by sheer overpressure is a proof, simply, 
that the safety-valves were either inopera- 
tive or of insufficient size. 

EXPLOSION AT ORDINARY PRESSURES. 

If an iron cylinder be burst by hydrosta- 
tic pressure, the broken parts are not 
projected into the air. The pressure being 
relieved by the rupture of the iron, it 
ceases to act before the ruptured parts can 
acquire momentum. In the case of a loco- 
motive boiler bursting with only 75 cubic 
ft. of steam, of a pressure of 140 lbs. per 
square inch, there would be a considerable 
expansive action after the plates were rent 
open. But this amount of steam, if ex- 
panded 685 cubic ft, equal to the volume 



64 



of a sphere 11 ft. in diameter, before its 
pressure was reduced to that of the atmo- 
sphere, could hardly produce any very vio- 
lent effects. So much of it would escape 
on the first opening of a seam of rivets, or 
other outlet, that a great part of the steam 
would be gone before the parts of the 
boiler could be completely separated. The 
range of action ■ of this amount of 
steam would also be comparatively short, 
as it would have to expand only about nine- 
fold before all its expansive power would 
be gone. It is altogether improbable that, 
if steam only, of 140 lbs. to the square inch, 
were let into a close vessel calculated to 
burst at that pressure, the explosion would 
have the violence of a boiler explosion un- 
der the usual circumstances. The laws of 
expansion of compressed air are nearly the 
same as those of steam, and vessels em- 
ployed in pneumatic apparatus are occasion- 
ally exploded, with an audible report and a 
smart shock, it is true, but without that 
terrible energy in which steam boiler ex- 
plosions so much resemble the explosion of 
gunpowder. Steam cylinders sometimes 



65 



fail ; generally, however, from the concus- 
sion of the piston against water collected in 
the cylinder ; but in such cases, with steam 
of nearly the full boiler pressure, and al- 
though the cylinder is formed of brittle cast 
iron, the broken parts are not projected 
violently away. In order to project bullets 
by steam, Jacob Perkins employed pres- 
sures of from 300 lbs. to 950 lbs. per 
square inch, whilst one ounce of fine pow- 
der, to the detonation of which steam boiler 
explosions are so frequently compared, 
will project a 24 lbs. ball 300 yards ; 225 
yards being the least range, in such a proof, 
at which the powder is received into the sei- 
vice. But whatever may be the force of 
steam acting by itself, the sudden libera- 
tion of the heat, stored up, under pressure* 
in a considerable quantity of water, as in a 
boiler explosion, would develop an addi- 
tional force. If, upon investigation, this 
force appears to be sufficient to account for 
the violent explosion of steam boilers, after 
rupture has once commenced, in consequence 
of defective material or construction, and, as 
we niay suppose, under an ordinary pressure, 



66 



we shall not need to assume and to account 
for the existence of extraordinay pres- 
sures like those with which Mr. Perkins 
experimented. If we consider heat as the 
source of power, and that the action of 
heat upon matter is always attended by the 
production of power, we shall be enabled to 
form a tolerable idea of the force concealed 
in a large body of highly heated water. 
The mechanical theory of heat has now at- 
tained such general acceptance, that it is 
sufficient to bear in mind that the " unit of 
heat," or the total quantity of heat capable 
of raising the temperature of one English 
pound of water through one degree of the 
Fahrenheit scale — or, which is the same 
thing, that of 100 lbs. of water through .01 
of a degree, or .01 lb. of water through 100 
deg. — that this quantity of heat, independ- 
ently of the medium through which it is 
exerted, possesses the same amount of pow- 
er as would be required to raise 772 En- 
glish pounds through a space of one Eng- 
lish foot, or 1 lb. through 772 ft., or 772 
foot-pounds. If the addition of one degree 
of temperature to one pound of water be an 



67 



addition of such a force, the addition of 100 
deg. to 10,000 lbs. of water is an addition of 
1,000,000 times the same force. In actual 
practice, the combustion of a pound of coal 
imparts to the water in a steam boiler about 
10,000 units of heat, equal to the evapora- 
tion of 8 lbs. or 9 lbs. of water of ordinary 
temperature ; and as in ordinary working, 
and under many losses and disadvantages, 
a pound of coal exerts about one-fourth of 
one horse power for one hour, or 15 horse 
power for one minute, or 900 horse power 
for one second, the heat stored up in 10,000 
lbs. of water, in raising it through 100 deg. 
of temperature, is practically and actually 
equal to 25 horse power exerted for one 
hour, or 1,500 horse power exerted for one 
minute, or 90,000 horse power exerted for 
one second ! The heating of 10,000 lbs. of 
water through 100 deg. of temperature rep- 
resents but a small part of the heat contain- 
ed in an ordinary steam boiler ; yet it prac- 
tically requires the combustion of 100 lbs. of 
coal to effect it, and- the heat imparted is 
equal to that expended in the conversion of 
about 870 lbs. of water, of ordinary tempe- 



68 



rature, into steam. In a boiler explosion 
the contained heat is all disengaged in per- 
haps one or two seconds. 

Eecurring to the locomotive boiler, with 
75 cubic ft. of water space and 75 cubic ft. 
of steam space, the corresponding weight of 
water would be 4,650 lbs., whilst the steam, 
even at 140 lbs. pressure, would weigh only 
26 lbs. The temperature of this steam, how- 
ever, which is the temperature also of the 
water from which it is formed, is 361 deg., 
and the water is heated therefore 149 deg. 
above the temperature at which it would 
produce steam, in the open air, of atmos- 
pheric pressure. Water could only be 
heated to this temperature by being con- 
fined under a corresponding pressure, and 
if, when the water has been so heated, the 
pressure is removed, the water cannot re- 
main in its original condition as water 
merely, but a part of it becomes immediate- 
ly converted into steam. 4,650 lbs. of wat- 
er, heated to 361 deg , contains as much 
heat, or as many "units of heat," over and 
above the heat at which it gives off steam 
of atmospheric pressure, as are contained in 



69 



577 lbs. of steam of a total temperature of 
1,200 deg. It i6 fair to presume, therefore, 
that upon the sudden liberation of the 
pressure under which 4,650 lbs. of water 
had been heated to 361 deg., about 577 lbs. 
of it would be immediately converted into 
steam. This quantity is more than twenty- 
two times greater than that of the steam 
originally contained in 75 cubic ft. of space, 
and at a pressure of 140 lbs. per sq. in. 

If we suppose a considerable rup- 
ture of any part of the boiler, any- 
where above the water-line, the steam 
already formed, would rush out with a ve- 
locity at first of about 2,000 ft. per second, 
Before the heat, contained in the water, 
could so far overcome the inertia of the 
water as to disengage additional steam, the 
upper part, or steam space of the boiler, 
might be nearly emptied. The steam which 
would inevitably rise from the water would 
thus strike at a very great velocity upon the 
upper part of the boiler, and no doubt, as 
Mr. D. K. Clark has suggested, in a com- 
munication to the " Mechanics' Magazine," 
of 10th February, 1860, the steam carries a 



70 



•great quantity of water with it. In some of 
the earlier locomotives, having a deficiency 
of steam room, the partial removal of the 
pressure from the water, by opening the 
regulator or "throttle," was attended by a 
rise of the water to the extent of from 8 to 
10 in. But whilst this result attended the 
xemoval of perhaps -^ of the superincum- 
bent pressure, its sudden and entire remo- 
val would cause a tremendous blow to be 
discharged — whether by the steam alone or 
by the combined steam and water — upon 
the sides of the boiler, sufficient, no doubt, 
not only to extend the rupture already ex- 
isting, but to completely rend the boiler in 
two or more parts. In the case of the ex- 
plosion at Birmingham, on the 5th March, 
1857, of engine No. 175, belonging to the 
Midland Railway Company, the boiler was 
broken into 17 pieces. These effects would 
follow when the boiler had ruptured, in 
consequence of some defect in its structure, 
under a moderate working pressure, as well 
as under such immense pressures as are 
commonly assumed in cases of violent ex- 
plosion. There is reason to believe that 



71 



steam alone, striking at a great velocity 
upon a solid surface, can discharge a violent 
blow, in addition to whatever effect it may 
produce by its pressure when at rest. Mr. 
D. K. Clark has mentioned to me that 
where he had applied an indicator to a loco- 
motive cylinder in which there was little or 
no compression, the sudden admission of 
steam through a large steam-port not only 
carried the pencil of the indicator above the 
point corresponding with the highest pres- 
sure in the steam chest, but a positive blow 
was discharged upon the finger when placed 
upon the pencil holder of the indicator. 
The same gentleman has mentioned to mo 
also a fact which has been observed in the 
working of the Cornish engines, where 
steam of moderately high pressure is ad- 
mitted into large cylinders, sometimes 100 
in. in diameter. The cylinder covers are 
found to " spring " with each admission of 
steam, indicating a smart shock in addition 
to the pressure, which, after the piston has 
commenced its stroke, can only act statically 
upon the cylinder cover. Some years ago, 
and before the days of steam gauges, one 



72 



Signor Morosi maintained the extraordina- 
ry opinion that on the stoppage of the pis- 
ton at each end of its stroke, the whole 
force of the steam was so violently stopped 
in its motion as to strike back forcibly into 
the boiler, like the water in the hydraulic 
ram, impinging as would a solid body upon 
the boiler plates.* The percussive action 
of steam is certainly not so great as this ; 
for it is only when steam strikes through 
an intervening space upon an unyielding 
surface and with a velocity of several hun- 
dred feet per second, that it can be consid- 
ered to act with any amount of percussion 
worth mentioning, and not when reacting 
(if indeed it did react) against a large body 
of steam within a boiler, and at the slow 
speed of a steam-engine piston, gradually ex- 
tinguished as its motion is at each end of its 
stroke. And, of course, upon Signor Moro- 
si's notion, the boiler should explode, if at 
all, when the engine makes its first stroke. 
In practice, the steam gauge, which has 
since come into general use, is found to in- 

* Dr. Alban on the " High -pressure Steam-engine," transla- 
ted by Wm. Pole (p. 27). London: Weale, 1848. 



73 



dicate a constant pressure without refer- 
ence to the changing of the strokes of the 
piston, excepting where the steam room of 
the boiler is very much too small. 

But the momentum of the combmed 
steam and water, discharged, as Mr. Clark 
has suggested in his communication already 
referred tot, would probably be sufficient to 

t " The following is a copy of Mr. Clark's letter ; 

TO THE EDITORS OF THE "MECHANICS' MAGAZINE." 

11 Adams street, Adelphi, London, Feb. 9, 1860. 

Gentlemen, — I have within the last few months given some 
attention to the subject of boiler explosions — their causes, and 
their rationale. I observe, in the discussions that have ap- 
peared in contemporary papers, that the percussive force of 
the steam suddenly disengaged from the heated water in & 
boiler, acting against the material of the boiler, is adduced ia 
explanation, and as the cause of the peculiar violence of the- 
result of explosion. 

Now, gentlemen, a little calculation would show that the 
percussive force of steam is not capable of causing such de- 
structive results as are occasionally produced ; an^l 1 beg leave 
to suggest that the sudden dispersion and projection of the 
water in the boiler against the bounding surfaces of the boiler 
is the great cause of the violence of the results : the dispersion, 
being caused by the momentary generation of steam through- 
out the mass of the water, and its efforts to escape. It 
carries the water before it, and the combined momentum of 
the steam and the water carries them like shot through and 
amongst the bounding surfaces, and deforms or shatters them 
in a manner not to be accounted for by simple overpressure- 
or by simple momentum of steam. 

Tour obedient servant, 

D. K. Clark.. 



74 



overcome the resistance of the material of 
the boiler and to rend it open, not only 
along seams of rivets, but, as is often the 
case, through solid iron of the strongest 
quality. The velocity with which the steam 
and water would strike would depend upon 
the extent to which the steam-space of the 
boiler had been emptied of steam, before 
the inertia of the boiler had been overcome 
by its contained heat. The water carried 
with the steam would not retain its ordi- 
nary condition as a liquid, but, being com- 
pletely pervaded by nascent steam, would 
have the character of an expansive body of 
more or less elasticity. The destructive ef- 
fects produced by the inevitable concussion 
of such a body upon the upper portion of 
a cylindrical boiler (and the water being 
originally in the bottom of the boiler would 
only strike upwards) cannot be estimated 
therefore by multiplying its weight, as if it 
were a solid body, into the velocity assumed 
to be acquired in the distance through which 
it would be projected against the iron shell 
of the boiler. It is very likely that the 
momentum of the steam and water is ex- 



75 



pended mainly in breaking the plates, es- 
pecially through strong solid iron, and that 
if no additional force were afterwards 
brought into play the ruptured parts of the 
boiler would drop to the ground, or, at the 
most, be projected only to a short distance. 
But at the moment when the steam and 
water rise to the upper part of the boiler, 
and, indeed, until a large outlet is provided 
(as when, perhaps, the boiler is forced com- 
pletely open), the quantity of steam disen- 
gaged will be very small indeed ; not 
greater than the quantity originally con- 
tained in the steam-space of the boiler. 
Whatever may be the quantity of heat in 
the water, it cannot convert any portion of 
the water into steam of a greater pressure 
than that under which only the water was 
originally heated ; that is to say, water 
heated, for instance, to 361 deg. cannot at 
that heat produce steam, spontaneously, of 
a greater pressure than 140 lbs. per sq. in. 
It is after the boiler has been rent com- 
pletely open, and after its separated portions 
have, perhaps, been started upon differ- 
ent courses through the air, that the 



76 



great disengagement of steam from the 
heated water must take place. This phe- 
nomenon can only occur after the boiler has 
been rent completely open, or, at least, 
when the water is no longer confined within 
its original limits, because the original 
capacity of the boiler would be insufficient 
for the disengagement of the steam, which, 
as it can never rise much above its original 
density, can only disengage itself upon the 
expansion of the water in which it was pre- 
viously confined. Assuming 577 lbs., or 
9.25 cubic ft., of the water contained in the 
locomotive boiler, already described, to be 
converted into steam of atmospheric pres- 
sure, it would form 15,188 cubic ft. of 
steam, equal to the volume of a sphere of 
31 ft. diameter; and until the disengaged 
steam had expanded to this volume at least, 
the parts of the exploded boiler would be 
within the range of explosive action. 
Under the velocity with which, as in the 
explosion of large boilers, more than one 
ton of elastic vapor would discharge itself 
into the air, the projection of fragments of 
the boiler, weighing 5 cwt, to a distance of 



77 



850 yards, as in the explosion at Wharton 
Colliery, near Chesterfield, in June, 1856, 
is not perhaps anything to be wondered 
at. 

Under the foregoing explanation of boiler 
explosions their results are produced by a 
series of consecutive operations, the first of 
which is the rupture of some portion, gene- 
rally a defective portion, of the shell of the 
boiler ; the rupture, unless it be of consider- 
able extent, occurring generally — in cases 
of violent explosion — above the water line. 
If a narrow rent take place in the bottom 
of the boiler the pressure upon the water 
will not be removed until the water falls to 
the level of the discharging opening ; and 
hence, as the water is not likely to escape 
with very great rapidity, no percussive ac- 
tion will occur within the boiler, from 
steam, either disengaged by itself, or in 
combipation with water ; and the steam 
which is disengaged from the escaping 
water will be already out of the boiler at 
the moment of its disengagement. 

The distinct and consecutive operations 
into which a boiler explosion, although 



78 



practically instantaneous, may probably be 
resolved, are, therefore these : — 

1. The rupture, under hardly if any more 
than the ordinary working pressure of a 
defective portion of the shell of the boiler ; 
a portion not much, if at all, below the 
water line. 

2. The escape of the free steam from the 
steam-chamber, and the consequent removal 
of a considerable part of the pressure upon 
the water, before its contained heat can 
overcome its inertia and permit the disen- 
gagement of additional steam. 

3. The projection of steam, combined as 
it necessarily must be with the water, with 
great velocity and through a greater or 
less space, upon the upper sides of the shell 
of the boiler, which is thus forced com- 
pletely open, and perhsp3 broken in pieces. 

4. The subsequent disengagement of a 
large quantity of steam from the heated 
water now no longer confined within the 
boiler, and the consequent projection of the 
already separated parts of the boiler, to a 
greater or less distance. 



79 



The rapidity of the escape of the steam, 
through a narrow opening, may be under- 
stood practically by observing an indicator 
diagram, taken from a locomotive cylinder 
when the engine is running at a high 
speed. The driving-wheels, at high ve- 
locities, revolve between four and five 
times every second, and each -cylinder must 
exhaust twice at each revolution, or per- 
haps ten times in 1 sec. An examination 
of the indicator diagram will show, more- 
over, that the actual exhaustion, at each 
half-revolution of the wheels, does not 
occupy much, if any, above one-fourth of the 
time in which such half-revolution is made 
— each complete exhaustion of a cylinder- 
full of high-pressure steam occupying, 
therefore, but about one-fortieth of 1 sec, 
notwithstanding the length and tortuous 
character of the exhaust passages, and the 
comparatively gradual opening of the valve. 

The force with which steam in motion 
will take up and carry water with it may be 
seen in the " Automatic Injector," or feed 
water apparatus, of M. Henri GifTard, as 
made by M. Flaud, of the Eue Jean Goujon, 



80 



Paris, and more recently, by Messrs. Sharp, 
Stewart & Co., of Manchester, and the 
Rogers Locomotive and Machine Company, 
of Paterson, U. S. In this apparatus, a jet 
of steam discharged through a conical noz- 
zle, draws up a considerable body of feed- 
water and impels it, first for a short dis- 
tance through the open air, and thence? 
through a valve, into the same boiler from 
which the steam was originally taken. The 
under side of the clack valve — or so much 
of its under side as receives the impact of 
the water before the valve is raised from its 
seat — has, of course, less area than the up- 
per side, on which the pressure within the 
boiler is exerted. Hence, to force water 
into the boiler against a pressure of, per- 
haps, 120 lbs. per sq. in., a pressure of, 
probably, at least 175 lbs. per sq. in. of the 
under side of the valve, has to be first ex- 
erted by the jet of combined steam and 
water. The jet at the same time is very 
small, and must move with considerable 
friction, which, therefore, by so much di- 
minishes its original force of motion. 

Where, therefore, a rupture is not at- 



81 



tended by explosion, it, is to be presumed 
either that the relief of pressure is not so 
sudden as to induce percussive action by 
the steam spontaneously generated, or else 
that, even with the partial or total removal 
of the pressure, the quantity of heat stored 
up in the water is insufficient to complete 
the explosion. If a very small crack occur 
above the water line, or if a considerable 
aperture be very gradually opened, the re- 
moval of the pressure upon the heated 
water will be so gradual that no violent 
percussive action may be induced, and, as 
has been already observed, if the rupture 
occur below the water line, the pressure 
upon the water may not be removed until it 
has been almost wholly discharged from 
the boiler. The dome covers of locomotive 
boilers are sometimes blown off without ex- 
plosion, but here it is probable that the 
fastening bolts do not all give way at once, 
and that the opening for escape enlarges 
gradually before the cover is forced com- 
pletely off. In 1853, the boiler of locomo- 
tive No. 4 of the New York and New IJa- 
ven Railroad, ruptured along the junction 



82 



of the barrel of the boiler with the dome. 
The steam was lost and the train detained, 
but no further damage was done. In the 
winter of 1856-7 the boiler of one of the 
locomotives of the New York and Harlem 
Railroad ruptured through the underside 
of the cylindrical barrel, the results being 
similar to those just mentioned. 

Another case, which came under my own 
observation, was that of a locomotive fire- 
box, which was ruptured at the Dunkirk 
shops of the New York and Erie Railroad. 
One seam of rivets had opened, on the Out- 
side fire-box, 1 in. in width, and perhaps 2 
ft. in height. The further opening of the 
seam had been prevented by the framing of 
the engine, which extended along the side 
of the fire-box. No violent consequences 
attended this rupture. In his last report, 
H. W. Harman, C. E., Chief Inspector to 
the Manchester Boiler Association, states 
that in one case which occurred under his 
inspection, an oval flue collapsed with com- 
plete rupture of the plates, in consequence 
of the gradual admission of steam through 
the stop-valve of an adjoining boiler, and of 



83 



higher pressure than the flue was eapable 
of sustaining. "But," adds Mr. Harman, 
"no explosion occurred; it came quietly 
down, and the contents were discharged 
into the boiler house without any report 
whatever; and in another case arising 
from deficiency of water, the plates became 
overheated and flattened sufficiently to de- 
range the seams, and a portion of the water 
escaped, also without concussion." 

As already observed, the percussive action 
exerted by the combined steam and water, 
upon the sudden removal of the pressure, 
must be exerted mainly upwards, and 
probably the larger number of exploded 
boilers first give way in the upper part of 
the barrel. Comparatively few locomotive 
boilers ever leave the rails when they ex- 
plode, unless the roof of the inside fire-box 
is crushed down. In February, 1849, the 
boiler of a locomotive employed on the 
Boston and Providence Railroad, United 
States, exploded with great violence whilst 
the engine was running with its train, and 
just after the steam had been shut off in 
approaching the Canton station. The en- 



84 



gine did not leave the rails, but ran some 
distance after the explosion. The explosion 
of engine No. 58, upon the New York and 
Erie Eailroad, in the summer of 1853, was 
attended with much the same results. The 
engine Wauregan, the explosion of which 
has been already mentioned, was not moved 
from the rails. Locomotive No. 77, of the 
New York Central Eailroad, exploded in 
the winter of 1856-7, whilst running with 
a train, and just after the steam had been, 
shut off. The engine did not leave the 
rails. Much of the iron in the barrel of the 
boiler was nearly as brittle as cast iron. 
Engine No. 23, of the Baltimore and Ohio 
Eailroad, exploded violently at about the 
same time and in nearly the same manner. 
The engine of which the boiler burst in 
Messrs. Sharp, Stewart & Co.'s Works, 
in the summer of 1858, was not thrown 
from the rails, although the explosion was 
one of terrific violence. Nearly all of these 
explosions occurred in the waist of the boiler, 
towards the smoke-box end. In but one 
of the six explosions just mentioned was 
there any evidence of the overheating of 



85 



any portion of the boiler. The tubes were 
in nearly every case bulged outwards be- 
yond the original diameter of the boiler, 
showing that in the disengagement of steam 
from the water contained among them a. 
considerable outward pressure had been 
exerted ; although the closeness of the 
tubes, and the consequent want of any clear 
space through which the disengaged steam 
could strike, precluded the supposition of 
percussive action, which, indeed, had it oc- 
curred, would have broken the tubes to 
pieces, and driven them in every direction, 
instead of bending them merely. 

In the case of the locomotive Irk, which 
exploded in the Manchester engine-shed of 
the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway, in 
February, 1845 ; in that of the explosion at 
"Rogers, Ketchum & Grosvenor's, in May, 
1851 ; in that of engine No. 100, which ex- 
ploded on the New York and Erie Railroad, 
in 1852 I believe, and in the case of the ex- 
plosion of an agricultural engine, at Lewes, 
Sussex, in September last, the roof of the 
fire-box was in each case forced downwards, 
the steam discharging below, and the en- 



gine was, in every instance, thrown into the 
air. Considering that the ordinary pres- 
sure upon the crown-plate of a locomotive 
fire-box is from 80 to 150 tons, there is no 
difficulty in accounting for these results, 
after the plate has once gone down. 

The boiler explosion which occurred at 
Messrs. "Warburton & Holker's Works near 
Bury, on the 15th of August, 1856, was be- 
lieved to have commenced in the bottom of 
the boiler. An extensive crack was known 
to have existed there, and it had been twice 
patched, notwithstanding which, a consider- 
able breadth of iron was afterwards found 
to have been reduced to a thickness of only 
-^in. But as the boiler was 36 ft. 6 in. 
long, and no less than 9 ft. 1 in. (109 in.) 
in diameter, and as it was worked, after its 
fth in. plates had been 11 years in use, at 
a pressure of 40 lbs. per sq. in., the final 
rupture of the bottom was in all proba- 
bility instantaneous for a great length, espe- 
cially as the boiler was riveted up with con- 
tinuous seams, or seams which did not break 
joints with each other ! This huge bomb- 
shell was said to have contained 56 tons of 



87 



water at the moment of explosion ; which 
quantity heated to 287 deg., corresponding 
to the pressure at which the explosion took 
place, would have given off at-least 3| tons 
of steam ! It has, indeed, been assumed, 
that in many cases of explosion, all the 
water previously contained in the boiler is 
converted into steam. Mr. Edward Woods 
once mentioned, at the Institution of Civil 
Engineers, an instance which came under 
his observation, in 1855 I believe, and 
where, after a locomotive boiler had burst, 
the whole of the water was found to have 
completely disappeared. Mr. Yaughan 
Pendred, of Dublin, has informed me that he 
observed a similar result after he had ex- 
ploded a small boiler, well supplied with 
water, for the purpose of experiment. He 
had erected a fence of boards about the 
place where the boiler was allowed to 
burst, but on going to the spot immediately 
afterwards no traces of water could be seen. 
I cannot adopt the idea, however, that all 
the water, heated, probably, to less than 
400 deg., is actually converted into steam. 
It is, no doubt, dispersed in a state of minute 



division and to a great distance ; but the 
greater, portion of it must still maintain its 
existence as water, since its contained heat 
is insufficient to convert it into steam. 
But there can be no doubt of the sudden 
generation of steam and projection of the 
water, when the pressure, under which 
water has been heated, is suddenly remov- 
ed, and it is probable that water, heated in 
the open air to 212 deg., would be sufficient 
to produce violent explosion if suddenly 
placed in a vacuous space, corresponding, 
in its proportions to the contained water, to 
an ordinary boiler. A boiler, 24 ft, long 
and 10 ft, in diameter, burst with great 
violence on the 9th December, 1856, at 
Messrs. Cresswell & Son's ironworks, at 
Tipton. In this case it was observed that 
the floor of the boiler-house, immediately 
after the explosion, was covered with water, 
and this fact was taken as evidence of a 
sufficiency of water in the boiler. The 
boiler had been in use for some 18 years, 
but its plates had retained an average thick- 
ness of § in. Had the plates been of good 
quality originally, and had they suffered no 



deterioration in the long time during which 
the boiler had been worked, the bursting 
pressure would have been 167 lbs. per sq. 
in. The explosion of the boiler was attrib- 
uted to overpressure, although the regular 
working pressure was but 17 lbs. per sq. in. 
The idea has been already suggested that 
heated water, if suddenly placed in a vacu- 
ous space, would disengage steam with 
great violence. The result would be neces- 
sarily the same whether the pressure, under 
which the water had been heated, were 
suddenly removed by exhaustion or by con- 
densation. And if it were purposely sought 
to condense the steam in the upper part of 
a boiler, this could be effected with light- 
ning-like rapidity. When steam of consid- 
erable pressure is discharged into a con- 
denser of suitable capacity, the condensa- 
tion is so instantaneous that the index of 
the vacuum gauge does not move at alL 
Even in surface condensers, in which the 
steam is let in upon several hundred square 
feet of tubular surfaces, kept cool by a con- 
stant circulation of water, the same instan- 
taneous action takes place. If, therefore, a 



90 



sufficient quantity of cold water — or water 
considerably below the boiling point corres- 
ponding to the pressure — were suddenly 
thrown up among the steam, its condensa- 
tion would as suddenly take place. An in- 
stant can thus be conceived in which no 
pressure would exist upon the water, which, 
as soon as its inertia could be overcome by 
its contained heat, would, therefore, be 
thrown violently against the upper part of 
the boiler, causing its explosion in the man- 
ner already explained. Whether, in the 
practical working of a steam boiler, circum- 
stances ever arise in which such condensa- 
tion could occur, is a matter of conjecture. 
In locomotive engines, for example, the 
feed water is commonly pumped into the 
boiler at two points on either side, a little 
below the ordinary water level. With both 
pumps on, from 100 to 175 cubic inches of 
water are pumped in at each revolution of 
the driving wheels ; and at a speed of even 
30 miles an hour, from 10 to 15 cubic feet, 
or from 600 lbs. to 1,000 lbs. of water 
would be pumped in every minute. If this 
water were pumped in at the water level, it 



91 



might not, obstructed as its descent would 
be by the closely packed tubes, mix with 
the water already in the boiler, until after 
some minutes ; especially if the engine were 
running by momentum only, after the steam 
had been shut off, and when, therefore, but 
very little steam would be in process of gen- 
eration, and when the circulation of the 
water would be consequently sluggish. If 
a stratum of cool water were to accumulate 
over the tubes, it would require a long time 
to heat it, especially if the draught had 
been stopped by shutting off the steam. 
Indeed 10 cubic feet of feed water, without 
circulation and consequent mixture with 
the hot water already in the boiler, would 
not, even when in contact with the heating 
surfaces, become heated to the boiling point 
in much less than a quarter of an hour. As 
long, however, as this water remained qui- 
escent, the steam accumulated over it would 
be condensed only very slowly. But if, as 
by suddenly turning the steam again into 
the cylinders, the diminution of pressure, 
and consequent rise of water, were such as 
to throw up a considerable quantity of it 



92 



into the steam chamber, the free steam 
might be instantly condensed, and, in such 
case, the reasoning already adopted would 
support the probability of instant explosion. 
In this case, the actual occurrence of which 
is not, perhaps, impossible, it would not be 
necessary to assume the existence of any 
defect in the boiler ; for, when the water 
once struck violently, the soundest iron 
would probably be broken, and the strong- 
est workmanship destroyed. 

Locomotive boilers often burst in the 
plates next to the smoke-box, beyond the 
reach of the fire, and where the boiler is 
believed to be stronger than about the 
fire-box. As has been observed, the 
dome, if it open from the ring of plates in 
question, weakens it materially; but ex- 
plosions have occasionally occurred in this 
part of a boiler, either having no dome, or 
having one only over the fire-box. A fact 
which was some time since communicated 
to me by George S. Griggs, Esq., Locomo- 
tive Superintendent of the Boston and Prov- 
idence Railroad, U. S., may assist in ex- 
plaining this somewhat anomalous mode of 



93 



explosion. In one or two cases of loco- 
motive boiler explosions, Mr. Griggs found, 
upon examination, that whilst none of the 
upper tubes had been burnt, others, lower 
down, exhibited unmistakable indications 
of having been smartly scorched ; the 
solder used in brazing being more or less 
melted. The tubes being closely packed 
in the boiler, it appeared that the heat 
passing through them had dispersed the 
water from their sides; the water-level 
being but about 15 in. above, and the con- 
sequent pressure of water, resulting from 
this amount of " head," being only about 
one half pound per square inch to over- 
come the violent disengagement of steam 
, in the restricted passages below. The ad- 
mission of water through the " check- 
valve " of the pump would suddenly cool 
the parts of the boiler with which it came 
first in contact, and would, no doubt, cause 
the partial return of the water to the sur- 
faces from which it had been expelled. 
Sufficient steam might be thus disengaged, 
by 2 cwt. or 3 cwt. of highly heated copper 
or brass tubes, to exert a sudden and 



94 



powerful strain upon the surrounding parts. 
Mr. 0. Wye Williams has mentioned, in 
his work on the Combustion of Coal, a cir- 
cumstance similar to that observed by Mr. 
Griggs. In one of the deep and narrow 
water-spaces of the boilers of the Great 
Liverpool steamship, the engineer found, 
on the first trip of that vessel to New York, 
in 1842, that the side plates were constant- 
ly giving way. On tapping a gauge-cock 
into the space, several feet below the water 
level, only steam was discharged, although 
the water was, at the same time, standing 
several feet above. In nearly all American 
and in the majority of French locomotives^ 
of recent construction, the tubes are dis- 
posed in vertical rows, in order to assist the 
circulation of the water. Mr. Griggs has 
assured me that some of his engines, with 
closely packed tubes, have actually made 
steam more freely after he had plugged 
the ends of ten or a dozen tubes, one 
over the other, in the middle of the boiler. 
As long as the water was not in complete 
contact with these tubes, the heat which 
before passed through them was to a 



95 



greater or less extent lost. I have myself 
observed that a class of locomotives having 
130 tubes, 2 in. in diameter, made steam 
more freely than another class, in all re- 
spects the same, with the exception of 
having 144 tubes, 1| in. in diameter, al- 
though the actual extent of heating sur- 
face was hardly more in the former than in 
the latter case. 

The quantity of water contained in 
steam boilers of a given length, and 
the consequent quantity of explosive 
matter which they contain under any given 
pressure, is, practically, as the square of 
their diameters ; and although different boil- 
ers, of the same materials and workmanship, 
are believed to be equally strong to resist 
rupture when the thickness of their plates 
bears the same ratio in every case to their 
diameter, the real danger, which ensues af- 
ter rupture has actually commenced, may 
be estimated, so to speak, as the square of 
their diameter and directly as their length, 
or, in other words, as directly proportional 
to the quantity of water which they contain 
at any given temperature. Although loco- 



96 



motive boilers, perhaps, sustain a greater 
proportionate strain than ordinary land 
boilers, and are, for that reasonj somewhat 
more liable to explosion, the effects result- 
ing from their explosion are seldom any- 
thing like those which attend the destruc- 
tion of large land boilers, even when work- 
ed at very moderate pressures. The Great 
Eastern casing, which exploded with great 
violence on the trial trip last September, 
was no more than a large boiler, 7 ft. in di- 
ameter, with an internal flue of 6 ft. diame- 
ter, and which was, practically, unstayed. 
The collapse of this flue, under a moderate 
pressure, and the consequent liberation of 
the heat contained in the hot feed-water, of 
which the casing was made to hold 11 tons, 
was sufficient, upon the explanation herein 
advanced, to account for the disastrous 
character of the explosion. 

I think there can be no doubt that a con- 
sideration of the expansive power of a large 
body of highly heated water, acting under 
the instigation of a sudden removal of the 
pressure (with the aid of which only it was 
possible to heat it above 212 deg.), is capa- 



97 



ble of clearing up much of the mystery 
which has for so long a time enshrouded 
the subject of Boiler Explosions. Such a 
consideration leads to a comprehensible and 
rational explanation of these disasters ; one 
which, upon a rigid process of reasoning, 
appears sufficient to account for all or near- 
ly all cases of the kind. Whilst the pres- 
ent essay may serve to commend this ex- 
planation to engineers and to the public 
generally, I hope it may also hasten the 
adoption of smaller and more numerous 
water spaces in steam boilers, as in the 
water- tube arrangement, which, with pure 
water, is, in my opinion, the safest, most 
efficient, and most economical yet devised 
for the generation of steam. But, above all 
else, public safety requires the frequent and 
systematic examination of all steam boilers, 
so that, as under the system of inspection 
which is in operation with such excellent 
results at Manchester and Huddersfield, de- 
fects may be discovered and remedied, in 
most cases before actual danger has been 
incurred. 

All our knowledge of boiler explosions 



98 



goes to show that, however possible it 
may be to accumulate an excessive pres- 
sure within a boiler, the actual explosion 
results, in the majority of cases, from some 
defect, either original or produced, and 
either visible or concealed, in the materials, 
workmanship, or construction of the boiler. 
Probably not much more than one per cent, 
of all the steam boilers made ever explode 
at all, and the results of systematic inspec- 
tion show that a far higher percentage of 
the whole number of boilers are constantly 
in a condition inviting explosion, and from 
causes which a general examination would 
not only disclose, but of which it would also 
insure the removal. 



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poses." 

MORSE. Examination of the Telegraphic Apparatus 
and the Processes in Telegraphy. By Samuel F. 
Morse, LL.D.. U S. Commissioner Paris Universal 
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By Robert Sabine, G E. Second edition, with ad- 
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MICHAELIS. The Le Boulenge Chronograph, with 
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ENGINEERING FACTS AND FIGURES An 
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HAMILTON. Useful Information for Railway Men. 
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Morocco, gilt 2 00 

7 



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STONEY. The Theory of Strains in Girders and simi- 
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SHREVE. A Treatise on the Strength of Bridges and 
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THE KANSAS CITY BRIDGE. With an account 
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EADS. System of Naval Defences. By James B. 

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BURT. Key to the Solar Compass, and Surveyor's 
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BRUNNOW. Spherical Astronomy. By F. Brunnow, 
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PEIRCE. System of Analytic Mechanics. By Ben- 
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CLARK. Theoretical Navigation and Nautical Astron- 
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HASKINS. The Galvanometer and its Uses. A Man- 
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GOUGE. New System of Ventilation, which has been 
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BECKWITH. Observations on the Materials and 
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products exhibited at the London International Exhi- 
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MORFIT. A Practical Treatise on Pure Fertilizers, and 
the chemical conversipn of Rock Guano, Marlstones, 
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Alumina generally, into various valuable products. 
By Campbell Morfit, M.D., with 28 illustrative plates, 
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BARNARD. The Metric System of Weights and 
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Report on Machinery and Processes on the In- 



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BARLOW. Tables of Squares, Cubes, Square Roots, 
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14 









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MYER. Manual of Signals, for the use of Signal officers 
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WILLIAMSON. Practical Tables in Meteorology and 
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THE YOUNG MECHANIC. Containing directions 
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PICKERT AND METCALF. The Art of Graining. 
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HUNT. Designs for the Gateways of the Southern En- 
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LAZELLE. One Law in Nature. By ('apt. H. M. 
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PETERS Notes on the Origin, Nature, Prevention, 
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BOYNTON. History of West Point, its Military Im- 
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WOOD. West Point Scrap Book, being a collection of 
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WEST POINT LIFE. A Poem read before the Dia- 
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HENRY. Military Record of Civilian Appointments in 
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